Higher Ground (22 page)

“He’s in rehab. That was his dad’s condition. It was the only way he’d post his bail.”

“Will he still be able to graduate?” Penn asked.

She shrugged. “He’s not coming back.”

The rest of lunch was spent in silence. My appetite was gone, so I left a few minutes early to stop by my locker. Taped to it was an enlarged photocopy of a picture.

A picture of me… on my back, tits on display, gripping navy bedding. It cut off at the neck, so my face wasn’t showing, but it was definitely my body.

“Fuck.” It was garbled, and my shaking hands tore the paper in half instead of ripping it from the metal entirely the way I’d planned. My body sagged against the closed door, and I pulled what was left and ripped both halves into hundreds of pieces.

“Hey.” I felt Penn’s arms before I saw him. He turned my body to face him and hugged me close. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought I got them all.”

“There were others?”

He nodded and kept me upright when my knees buckled. I didn’t ask how many. It was bad enough knowing he’d seen them, that everyone had probably seen them.

“How?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But if I had to guess, I’d say it was one of Mitchell’s customers.”

“I hate him,” I said into his chest. “I wish I’d never fucking met him.”

“I do, too.” His lips ghosted across my forehead. “Call Miss Verity.”

“No.” I shook my head. “Fuck ’em. I’m sure I’m not the only one he could do this to. He loves that fucking camera. There are only two weeks left, and then I never have to see any of these people again. I don’t care anymore.”

He looked at me and nodded. “Okay.”

There were plenty of whispers behind my back during those last couple of weeks of the school year. The staring was constant, but no one ever said a word to my face about Oliver or the pictures of me except Mr. Stacy. He asked, but I denied they were of me. Since I was studying harder than ever before, he let it go. Somehow, I even managed perfect grades on all of my final exams, and on graduation night, I had a small cheering section in the crowd.

Troya was the only person from her family there. My mother invited her and George to join us for dinner afterward at the snooty, upscale French restaurant my father had chosen in the business district. It was by reservation only, and our party had taken up most of the café. For one night, he acted like he was happy with me, maybe even proud of me.

After dinner, Mom pulled me aside on the way out to the car. “Go out for a while. Have fun. You’ve earned it.”

There was a party at Penn’s house. His mom knew about this one and chose to drive his grandmother home after graduation so he could have one last hoorah. Weirdly enough, it was the tamest party he’d ever hosted.

People brought alcohol and weed, but the crowd was smaller than normal, because only seniors had been invited. Troya and Sonny were the exceptions.

I decided to test my luck and did a few shots of tequila with Celeste, but I left the room when Sonny mentioned firing up a joint. Penn followed, asked if I wanted to escape the noise, and led me to the stairs when I said yes. At least a dozen people watched us go up together, and I finally had sex in Penn’s bedroom.

He was sweet and awkward, even clumsy at times, but he used a condom and took care of me with his fingers before he even let me touch him. It was good until the alcohol wore off and I realized what I’d done. Still, I stayed there under the sheets with our legs tangled. He talked about driving to see me at Auburn in the fall, and even though I knew it wouldn’t happen, I still let him say the words.

At midnight, he called a cab and watched as I dressed across the room. We walked downstairs together, and the way people stopped and gaped made me wonder if I’d put my dress on backward. One glance in the mirror in the foyer put everything in place.

My hair was tangled, my lipstick was gone, and Penn’s hand was on my waist.

When the cab stopped in front of his house, he walked with me to the street and kissed me goodbye.

“Call me when you get back from Florida,” he said.

Even though we exchanged a few texts, it was the last time I saw him.

While he spent a week with his parents in the Caribbean, that entire summer was a blur for me. The week after graduation, I earned a sobriety coin. Then my court date went well, and I was released from probation. Mom and Dad celebrated by putting me and Van on a plane and sending us to my aunt and Grandpa Bull in Miami. I talked to Troya a few times over the phone but stayed far away from New Orleans until the week before I left for Auburn.

The neighborhood was unusually quiet the day Mom and Dad decided to take me. Van hugged me on the porch. “I love you,” he said. “This sucks.”

“This part does,” I agreed, holding on a little too long. “I’ll text you all the time.”

“You better.” He looked at Miss Verity, nodded, and left us out there alone.

“You’re scared,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am.” I took a deep breath and watched as Dad loaded the last of my stuff into the back of his car.

“You’ll be fine.”

The sting of tears threatened for the first time in weeks. “I hope so,” I said.

“You will.” There was no room for argument.

Only questions. “Will he?” I didn’t have to say Oliver’s name for her to know.

“You can’t change fate, Violet.”

I nodded and hugged her. It was hard to let go. Dad had to call my name twice, and when I turned around, I was bawling. Knowing I wouldn’t see Miss Verity, Van, or any of my family for months hit me harder than I’d expected. I barely made it through my goodbye to Ronnie, and my sniffling woke Hayden from his nap.

I didn’t look back or wave once I got in the car. It was easier to stare straight ahead. As the turn for Oliver’s house came into view, I thought about asking my father to drive by one last time. Our goodbyes were long over, though, and there wouldn’t have been a point except to pick at the scab.

It didn’t take long to see that college was different. There was no Van or Troya, and because they were still at Newman, I couldn’t even text them during the day. Most of the girls in my dorm were nice, but I’d never excelled at meeting new people.

I thought about Oliver and tortured myself by imagining that rehab had somehow fixed him. Maybe counseling would guide him to some epiphany that love was real. Then he’d show up at my dorm at midnight, beat down the door, tell me he loved me, and that he’d made a mistake.

The passing days made it clear that wasn’t going to happen.

I took the maximum number of classes allowed each semester to keep busy. When I still found myself with too much free time, I got a job as a waitress at a popular restaurant near campus. My other love was a student outreach program. I worked closely with the medical clinic, gave presentations on safe sex, and handed out a ton of free condoms.

As weird as it sounds, it was a great way to meet guys. A relationship was the last thing I wanted, but I still liked to smoke weed and have sex.

And there was no one to stop me, or drug test me, at Auburn.

Wren was my roommate, but we barely spoke that first year. With different majors, different interests, and different circles of friends, there wasn’t much time for togetherness. At the end of the year, we agreed that living together hadn’t been bad and tossed around the idea of getting an apartment.

I knew I had to go to New Orleans for Van’s graduation, but I had no intention of staying there. I wanted to keep my job, and I could get ahead by taking summer classes. I was clinging to any and every excuse to get back to Alabama as quickly as possible.

My worry ended up being for nothing. Oliver was a no-show and didn’t see Troya walk across the stage. I wasn’t sure whether my relief or my disappointment was greater.

Nothing really changed for a long time until, one day, I realized it had been a few days since I’d thought of Oliver and what had happened back in New Orleans. Days turned into weeks, and eventually, weeks turned into months.

Those old thoughts and memories dissolved until I could barely remember what he looked like or how he smelled… or his stupid camera.

Wren and I had decided to graduate early, so we reeled in our social lives by several notches and became homebodies. We took classes during the summers and loaded ourselves down during the regular school years. After three years, we had undergrad diplomas in hand and an apartment in Atlanta waiting for us.

I had a plan.

It didn’t involve a guy.

I’d stopped my escapades when I’d changed zip codes and adopted an “abstinence only” mantra to get me through graduate school. I’d given up booze and weed, so it was easy to give up men, too—for the first year, anyway.

Then everything changed with one simple invitation to a Hawks game.

“Violet, this is Wade.” Wren’s brother pointed over his shoulder at the mess of dark hair and perfect shoulders I’d been admiring.

The guy behind Stephen turned around and grinned. “You’re the Poe specialist,” he said.

“Oh. Are you a fan?”

He had on loose-fitting jeans and a gray Hawks hoodie. Nothing about him screamed literary junkie until he opened his mouth and said, “
But we loved with a love that was more than love—I and my Annabel Lee.
”

“My favorite,” I said.

His lips turned up at the corner. It was a devilish smile that highlighted the smooth line of his jaw. My stomach flipped in a long-forgotten, terrifying way. “Mine, too.”

I sat back in my seat, wishing I could disappear into the hard plastic, but he refused to be ignored.

“When will you graduate?” he asked.

“They tell me it’ll take six years, but I plan to do it in five. That leaves me with three more.”

“How?”

“I take as many classes as possible each semester and summer. It can be done.”

“Well, yeah, but you can’t possibly have time for anything else.”

“Exactly.”

I didn’t see him again until summertime a few months later. Wren had forced me to spend our one free week in July down at her parents’ condo in Pompano Beach. Her brother was already there, though, with Wade in tow. Stephen and Wren started arguing about who would get to stay before she even put her suitcase down. When it got heated, they left us to have their discussion on the beach.

Wade walked to the fridge while I went straight for the patio. He followed, sat in the chair across from mine, and slid a beer across the table. It was the first of many late-night talks on the deck as the ocean tumbled and crashed in the background. He was a night owl, like me, and he was a voracious reader. He knew Shakespeare and Hemingway, but horror and psychological thrillers were his favorites.

Midweek, he confessed it had started for him when his stepdad had given him a box of his old
Hardy Boys
books. “It took me a while to figure out he did it to have something to talk to me about.” He looked down at the beer in his hand to avoid my stare.

When it took me more than an hour to fall asleep that night, I knew I was in trouble.

He talked about Savannah and seemed intrigued when he found out I grew up in New Orleans. I asked about his job, and that was when he told me his major was journalism with a minor in English. He interned with CNN through Emory and had been there ever since. We shared a love for the Oxford comma, but he belonged to the camp that believed Poe died from rabies. It was a popular theory, but I strongly disagreed.

“Okay,” Wade said. “If it not rabies, then what?”

It was my last night there. Wren and I were both enrolled for the second summer session and had to be back in Atlanta and ready to function on Monday. Wade was staying in Florida through Wednesday. As much as I hated to admit it, I’d grown fond of our chats and even of our disagreements.

“It was election day,” I said.

He groaned. “Cooping?” There was a condescending head shake or two. “You think the cause of death was voter fraud?”

“For years, yes, but I have to admit that I’m conflicted over new theories of a brain tumor.”

“It’s too bad Lizzie Doten didn’t ask his spirit when she had the chance.” There was something almost wistful in his voice, and happy surprise lit his features when I laughed out loud.

“Right? It would’ve been a hell of a story,” I said. His mind was a lovely, open thing to behold. “Miss Verity said it wasn’t rabies, though, so you can put that theory to bed.”

“Miss who?”

“My grandmother,” I said. “Miss Verity. She said it definitely wasn’t rabies.”

“Is she a medium like Doten?”

“She prefers to be called a psychic.”

The smile slipped, and his mouth dropped open. “You’re serious.” He leaned forward in his chair. “That’s amazing.”

“She doesn’t really talk to dead people, though. Well, not in a professional way, anyway. I mean, they don’t answer…” He looked thoroughly confused. “Oh, my God.” My hand covered my mouth, and I laughed.

“So, Miss Verity won’t be publishing poetry communicated to her by a dead author any time soon.” I wasn’t sure how he said it with a straight face, but he did.

“No, she won’t. She dabbles in tarot readings and palmistry.”

“Like a hobby?”

When he’d leaned forward in his seat, he’d also angled his body toward me, so when I turned to answer, my knee touched his. My instinct was to pull away, but I couldn’t. “It’s her day job. And her night job, too. She’s good at it.”

He looked down at our legs, his skin on mine, and lifted his hand. Accidental touching was one thing, but the thought of Wade touching me on purpose was scary. I stood before it could happen, made up an excuse, and left him sitting alone on the deck. He was asleep the next morning when Wren and I loaded her car and slipped away at sunrise.

It was hard not to ask for his number, and I stalked him on Facebook. Well, I looked at his profile once or twice. My thumb hovered over the Add Friend button, but I didn’t tap it.

Wren invited me to Stephen’s birthday party that September. Wade was there, too… with a girl. It shouldn’t have been a big deal, but it was frustrating to see him and not talk to him. I hadn’t wanted to hide in a bathroom so badly since high school, but I refused to admit I was having a problem. Instead, I watched them out of the corner of my eye all night and left without ever having said hello.